Kukla's Korner Hockey

Nicklas Backstrom of the Washington Capitals is scheduled for a disciplinary hearing as a result of his cross-check on Boston Bruins forward Rich Peverley at the end of Monday’s game.

Backstrom was assessed a match penalty on the play.

The hearing will likely be held on Wednesday with Game 4 of the series slated for Thursday.

Capitals head coach Dale Hunter defended Backstrom’s actions, saying he “was trying to protect his face,” because Peverley had his stick raised. Hunter feels the Bruins are targetting the head of Backstrom, who missed 40 games near the end of the regular season with a head injury.

It was a lame Match Penalty and this is an even more lame hearing. Shanahan is now going to be the tough sheriff, until he becomes the weak sherriff again. Along with the Shaw hearing these are ridiculous actions, you can’t make up calls later for the ones you missed earlier. Idiots.

I would like to know what would consitute grounds for rescinding the match penalty though? One more way to undermine the on-ice officials if it does get rescinded. I agree that Backstrom’s “match” penalty was on the weak end of the attempt to injure scale, but the mandatory sentences in the NHL are a joke since never once are they upheld.

They should just institute an in-game appeal process for every penalty as well. Ref calls two minutes high sticking and the coach calls him over, points out a couple of calls that were missed and the ref decides okay we’ll let it slide this time. It is still a penalty, but we’ll consider it time served since we blew the play dead and faceoff in the defensive zone.

The two minute minor really set the Preds back, do they get credit for a PK kill as well? I thought in the regular season if you took a penalty with less than two mintues remaining you shouldn’t be allowed to be one of the first three shooters in the shootout. I don’t see why a player would avoid a minor after the clock has expired.